Permanence and the Physical World

The permanence of the physical world, and the reality of the air-filled space are alarming to individuals who generally find themselves moving throughout digital media. The quick solution that is the “delete” key can negate the physical motions your fingers have made, while one cannot “take back” an in-person interaction. Various applications attempt to emulate the comfort of well-known physical motions, while maintaining the safety-net of a screen. Paper, created by FiftyThree, touts itself as the “simplest, most beautiful way to create on the iPad,” as “ideas begin on paper.” The irony, of course, is that the feeling one gets when clawing on the screen of a tablet, is nothing like the satisfaction that goes along with a pen and paper. Penultimate, a relatively successful application, and Paper are practically useless without a stylus. Having to purchase a writing implement in order to interact with a touch-based interface defeats the supposed ease of such devices, further distancing users from their digital “paper.” When using a pencil, the self-awareness of your movements force you to pay attention to not only the content but the initial styling, whereas a digital environment gives you the ability to alter that text later, allowing for more spontaneous, carefree text entry. When faced with the choice of working in an analog or digital space, one must consider the physical meaning of both choices, as the distinction between the two is blurred by the introduction of cross-platform, and augmented reality applications.